Bless Canadian director Guy Maddin. Without his crazy surreal silent films, contemporary filmmaking would be a whole lot more boring. And while it’d be easy to relegate his peculiar brand of expressionism in Brand upon the Brain! as a throwback to 1920s filmmaking, this film plays like a hyper-kinetic DJ mixing his favourite scenes from his memory. Maddin claims this film is 96% autobiographical. I’m not entirely sure if he ever grew up in a lighthouse on a desolate island, or fell in love with a brother/sister duo sent to uncover Maddin’s mad scientist father’s experiments on an orphanage on the island. Also I’m not sure if his relationship with his mother or sister were exactly as depicted in the film. No matter, it was highly entertaining no matter what. The film ultimately constructed a highly inventive and disturbing depiction of childhood.

It adopts a similar tone to his equally delirious Cowards Bend the Knee. This film abounds in psychoanalytic imagery and psychosexual concepts. (Whisper: the lighthouse is a phallic object). It also features some classic imagery – the mother’s seat/telescope is one of the most inventive and frightening images in recent cinema. The visuals also use very striking black and white images. The editing is also something else – manic, seemingly unrestrained, but also excellently paced. The sound effects are also nightmarish – static-y and deliberately false – and are highly effective. The narration (by Isabella Rossellini) is wildly melodramatic and the utterly brilliant music by Jason Staczek is wonderfully evocative. This all makes for a visual and aural orgy – a feast that most “sound” filmmakers would never even come close to matching.

The film if it does have a weakness is in its narrative. Splitting the narrative up into a Feuillade serial with 12 segments, he tells the story like a novel (you can also feel the influence of the likes of Virginia Woolf and DH Lawrence). The film does feel a little too long – but this will be even more so for those who are unfamiliar with his style (may I suggest checking out Careful and Archangel first if unfamiliar with his work). However, the melodramatic style does complement the narrative even more so than usual with Maddin. This is a strikingly original piece of filmmaking, and emphasises Maddin’s peculiar but brilliant form of storytelling.—Brannavan Gnanalingam